Adventures in Horizon Forbidden West's Side Quests: Part 4

As I continue to deliberately sidetrack myself in the Forbidden West, I'm developing an appreciation for just how much larger and richer its world is than the map for Zero Dawn. Not that there was anything wrong with the first game. It's just that Guerilla obviously outdid themselves with the size and scale of the environment. In Zero Dawn, I felt like I could go all over the place and not encounter anything except machine sites. Out in the west, things come at you out of the woodwork, and rockwork, and waterwork. It's not just machines and NPCs asking for help, either. There are mysteries; clues from quests you haven't started yet that make you wonder what's this all about? 

That's genuinely provocative, because it means that there's a much more elaborate storytelling machine working behind the graphics. Instead of placing switches on every quest that keep environmental cues turned off until you trigger them, the Guerilla team left certain elements on. It feels like a radical departure from the traditional approach of "don't put anything out there that will confuse the player." Instead, there's just enough lying around that you can be delightfully perplexed. 

Those general impressions are takeaways from some very short, cut-and-dry side quests I'll review here. Yes, they're pretty straightforward as replicas of things Guerilla created for Zero Dawn. But I still find it remarkable how much more texture there is to these side-quests compared to their precursors. 

Side Quest #7: The First Vista Point

Nothing will ever outdo the "planet of the apes moment" for me when I got to the first vista point in Zero Dawn and realized I was standing on the site of my alma mater at the Air Force Academy. After that, I was totally sucked into a personal "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego" meta-game with the vistas and the worldbuilding, so I didn't know if Forbidden West would continue that tradition.

It totally continues the tradition and improves on it.

In Zero Dawn, all you had to do was get near a point, obtain the signal ping, go to the location, turn on your focus, and voila, there's your geographic landmark. Here, it's a bit more of a quest. In part one, you get a partial image of the vista. After that, you have to look around for the place where the image was taken to get the full thing. I found it pretty fun to have to use my own intuition and perception of the geography to help the focus along. For someone who likes to explore maps like me, it's a really fun little distraction. I wasn't as thrilled with the result, since the image wasn't of some major site in the U.S. I hope other ones refer to more culturally significant landmarks.

Side Quest #8: A Bigger Boom

Iiiiit's an errand. I don't know if there's really a way to make the "go find a thing, kill it, and bring me back some of its parts" sequence seem less monotonous beyond not making the player do it so often. But after killing a thing so a guy could cook you some food, killing a thing so you can get a new weapon is at least a little more enticing. 

What really spurred me to get to the end of this one was the dialogue between the two inventors, Delah and her sister, Boomer. There was a ton of nuance stuffed into these characters. They exhibited idiosyncrasies in their behavior and speech, interacted like real sisters, and showed some authentic individuality. That's a lot to pack into a brief space for a mission intro, but hats off to the writer and the voice actors for this one. The time I had with them was as good as some scenes between Taystee and Poussey in Orange is the New Black. These people were not treated as one-offs, and even if they are one-offs, I appreciated their humanity. 

Side Quest # 9: Tallneck Site

I know, I know, I know. This is way down the road, both on the map and the timeline, from the previous two, but it fits with the overall theme of this post about how small elements add up to big things, so I'm putting it here.

In Zero Dawn, tallnecks were really just easy little climbing exercises that gave you some advance orientation to the local map area. They don't have an extremely strong connection to the world -- geographically or lore-wise-- but they're aesthetically cool and they have a good use. If the first tallneck site in Forbidden West is any indication, then they've grown up significantly. You have to clear the site of a few machines patrolling it, then negotiate a combo puzzle-climbing obstacle around a giant radar tower to get high enough to mount the tallneck. The thing that especially drew my interest is that this tallneck was patrolling an area reminiscent of the Very Large Array in New Mexico. There were even a couple of background lore entries around the radar antenna you climb. Overall, what was once a non-sequitur map reveal dressed up as an obstacle dressed up as a machine is now an element of the game that offers challenge, a bit of unspoken adventure, and world-building nuggets. 

Overall, it's evident that the quests team at Guerilla did way more than just expand the categories of quest management in the menu. Everything is a little richer. There was a strong appreciation for how details add to atmosphere. Without doing anything huge to turn the game world on its head, they put in a lot of little extras to make the player feel consistently rooted in the world. 

The same goes for the side quest "shadows of the past," which I'll get into on my next post.

Adventures in Horizon Forbidden West's Side Quests: Part 3

Continuing my study of side quests in Horizon: Forbidden West, I think I've discovered a semi-kinda-sorta weakness in a quest's fundamental design. After playing through it, I took the time to watch several other videos posted on YouTube. I've come to the conclusion that it's not exactly a flaw in the quest's presentation. More of a miscommunication. I'll quickly go through the recap and then get into the narrative snag. 

Side Quest #6: Signals of the Sun

Summary:

Once again, we need a call to adventure that will pull Aloy from her primary mission. A dead body and a callous soldier fit the bill. Aloy finds a young man who's fallen off a cliff. A local village guard tells Aloy he has no sympathy for the climber for his foolishness, and the same goes for his companion somewhere still up on the cliffs. Given this knowledge, Aloy cannot turn her back on the hapless stranded climber.

Horizon: Outdoor Recreation Victims Unit

Aloy climbs the rocks and spots the climber, who is injured and hemmed in by a group of machines. The player can sneak or fight through them and get to the climber, who introduces herself as Raynah. Raynah is after a lens used to focus sunlight into a signal beam in a nearby tower. There are six of these in the local area. Raynah explains that her father designed the towers and the lenses have sentimental value, adding a little emotional connection to the quest if the player needed more than purely mercenary incentives to engage with the mission. I appreciate the nuances like that because it helps me feel like going on these little errands is still consistent with Aloy's character.

Aloy climbs the nearby tower, gets the lens, and returns it to Raynah. Raynah then gives Aloy a reward of 15 shards and a few other items. She tells Aloy to find her in the village anytime she comes across lenses. Aloy can earn 15 shards for each lens and, upon delivering all lenses, receive a special reward.

Notable Notes:

The quest is pretty straightforward but is unique from the others in two ways. It's the first instance which gives the player a motivation to backtrack. Getting cooking materials for Milduf technically required backtracking, but in this case if the player hasn't explored every nook and cranny of the map, then they'll have to double back nearly to where they entered. In that regard, the geographic path the quest takes goes against the grain of Aloy's primary mission right now. I've played farther ahead and one thing I've been very happy about with other side quests is how well they run parallel to the main storyline. 

The Tangled Web of the Game's First Branching Narrative:

The bigger deal about what makes this unique is that it's the first quest in which the player's actions in the game heretofore have an impact on story beats. How Raynah responds to Aloy is dependent on whether the player has already discovered any of the signal towers in the local area and collected their lenses. The overarching story here has versatile potential to either be the beginning of a new "errand-style" quest, the resolution of an ongoing mystery, or a little bit of both. 

With all that said, here's the snag. I've created a flowchart to better exhibit the issue I found. Starting from the discovery of the guard lugging the dead climber around, here's the quest's progression:

It's a straight shot until we meet Raynah. Upon encountering her, the designers realized there were some potential player-created variations. What if the player has already scoured the map in search of data logs, artifacts, or other lore tokens? They've probably found some lenses. So, Raynah has to address that possibility in order to maintain consistency. It would be natural for Aloy's possession of lenses to come up in conversation. Therefore, if the player has collected at least one lens, Aloy mentions as much during their conversation. We have a dialogue branch, as diagrammed below:

Raynah pays 15 shards per lens Aloy already has. Raynah then pays Aloy an additional 15 shards and a few other goodies for retrieving the one in the nearby tower. Afterward, she tells Aloy that, should she collect more, to bring them to the town. At that point, a quest prompt appears on the screen explicitly telling the player that the quest is complete. The player receives XP and rewards. 

Now come complications. I'll lay it out in writing and then hopefully make it clear in the diagrams below. There are some scenarios to deal with:

SCENARIO 1) If Aloy had ZERO lenses to give Rayna and the player is only now aware that others exist somewhere on the map, then they'll receive notification of a new "errand" quest, which is to retrieve all the lenses and take them to Raynah in town.

SCENARIO 2) If Aloy gave Raynah SOME lenses, then there remain a few to collect. That's still covered in the errand requirements. 

But what about players like me, who have crawled all over the map like an archaeologist and created...

SCENARIO 3) Aloy gives Raynah ALL the lenses? 

It's clear from some variations in when and how Raynah's dialogue is presented that the development team was aware this was a possibility. But I don't think they caught everything. In my experience, I noticed something odd about Raynah's farewell on the clifftop. I gave her ALL the lenses. But in her parting shot, she still told me to "come see her in town" if I found any more. Why would I do that? I asked myself. I don't have anything more to give you. 

I've mapped it out below to highlight the oddity.

I only found out later by accident that Raynah DOES go back to the village. She flagged me down while running around. I might not have spotted her otherwise. Upon engaging with her, she gave me a final reward, which surprised me. It was a totally chance encounter. Based on the messaging that the quest was complete, and having no indication that an errand mission ever existed, I had no reason to seek her out. I could just have easily gone through the entire game without ever collecting the final reward. 

And that's why, in my case, it's more of a miscommunication than a design flaw. Raynah DOES technically tell you to come see her, but then the game sort of overwrites that message by saying "congrats, you're done!" 

I completed the quest before the first patch was released, though none of the patch notes I read indicate anything has changed with this side quest as of 1.08. I watched several videos of other players completing the quest while already in possession of all the lenses. In their case, Raynah immediately announces on the clifftop that she'll leave the area and go back to her home. If you have to complete the errand, she doesn't speak that dialogue until she's in the village. So far, I'm the only instance I know of getting a "hybrid" message, in which you hand over all the lenses but Raynah still waits for you in the village.

I would love to know if other players who give Raynah all the lenses at the cliff still find her in the village, and if she gives them any additional rewards. Assuming I'm not the only one who's had the experience, I find it interesting that the presentation of cues to the player make it ambiguous as to whether they should seek Raynah out in the village. 

At any rate, this was the first instance I came across in which the quest's narrative had to be flexible in response to potential scenarios created by the player. It's a great demonstration of how players can be granted control over outcomes and story beats, and highlights the power of games as interactive fiction. There weren't too many instances like this in Zero Dawn, and seeing one so early in Forbidden West makes me hopeful for many, many more throughout. 

Adventures in Horizon Forbidden West's Side Quests: Part 2

Continuing my journey through the Forbidden West, I remain impressed with the way the team at Guerilla synthesized worldbuilding, main line story, and character development in the quick little detours off the beaten path. I'll jump right into it.

Side Quest #4: "The Twilight Path"

The quest sets up an unscrupulous business owner named Tolland against a group of refugees who follow the Shadow Carja religion. They're basically squatting on an area full of salvage that Tolland wants to recover. He's willing to send a goon squad in to intimidate or even kill the Shadow Carja to get them to move. Aloy decides to intervene.

Again, it's a solid inciting incident that is convincing enough to pull Aloy from her main quest. I also loved how the refugees are Shadow Carja, which is a direct reference to the story from the last game. On the one hand, it's great to see that this game is a continuation of a broader story and consequences from the last game's events are playing out in the world beyond Aloy's experience. On the other hand, now that I think about it, people who didn't play the first game probably paused so they could hit Google up for the backstory here. While inconvenient to those players, it's a creative choice I agree with because the overall world is richer for it. Nobody would expect to jump into Season 2 of a show without lacking context, so that's a hit the uninitiated player has to take.

Aloy is not having it with religion this time around.

The quest's progression involves Aloy fighting off a group of goons attacking the refugees. She then tries to talk the refugees into leaving before they're murdered. They won't go until their prophet returns from a mountaintop. Aloy climbs up to retrieve the prophet.

Once up the mountain, Aloy must fight through some machines to find the prophet. He's been wounded during the climb and after encountering the machines. He asks Aloy to retrieve an artifact from a local tower. Ironically, it's the very artifact that Tolland was eager to salvage. Getting it is a simple matter of some more climbing. 

Aloy returns to the prophet with the artifact, only for him to die of his wounds. Aloy returns to the refugees with the artifact, which they can then use to purchase supplies and land to live on. Tolland is angry but doesn't dare mess with Aloy. 

Overall, it's a mission of mercy that's become a trademark of Aloy's character in both games. It's well-executed. However, I also notice another element of her character bubble to the surface during the quest's storyline -- Aloy's disdain for religious fervor. 

Aloy makes it clear she believes the only sensible choice is for the refugees to move on for their own safety. She doesn't hesitate to express her frustration at every turn when the refugees insist on waiting for their prophet, or when the prophet refuses medical care or help because he must wait on his god's message. This isn't the first time we've seen Aloy having no time for spiritual nonsense, but this case is unique. In most of her interactions with NPCs, the player gets a moment to choose a dialogue path. They can select a response that is either philosophical, passionate, or hard-nosed, to emphasize one of Aloy's character traits. That option never appears in this quest. Aloy doesn't try to appeal to the prophet's higher theological mindset or empathize with his belief that he must complete a sacred mission. She goes straight to criticizing him for blind faith. 

The team doesn't make Aloy totally heartless. She has a true moment of reflection upon finding the prophet has died. Is she finally forced to empathize a bit, or does she regret being so harsh to a dying man? It's left for the player to interpret, and for that reason and the way it's executed, it stands out to me as one of the best side quests in either Horizon game so far. 

I get that Aloy is more in tune with the realities of her world and knows most of what's in the religious scriptures is B.S., but I think it's telling about what the writers decided to do with the character by drawing a hard line in the sand on her principles regarding spiritual leaders. I'm eager to see how it plays out.

Adventures in Horizon Forbidden West's Side Quests: Part 1

I've become fascinated with the art of the side quest ever since listening to John Ingold's presentation at GDC in which he offered the encounter approach to open-world storytelling. I got addicted to Horizon Zero Dawn the moment I arrived at the in-game ruins of my alma mater at the U.S. Air Force Academy. It hit me like watching Charlton Heston discover the Statue of Liberty at the end of the original Planet of the Apes. After that, I was totally sucked into the task of finding out what had happened. I was more interested in exploring the world of HZD and completing any side quest that would reveal its secrets than I was in finishing the main storyline. Knowing I had high hopes for similar entertainment value in the sequel and that I'd be investing a lot of time into it, I decided to at least get some academic value out of it. So, after watching Narrative Director John Gonzalez's interview with Noclip and Leszek Szczepanski's talk on Building Non-Linear Narratives in HZD, I set out to play the game and... take notes on the side. 

As of this writing, I've only just left "The Daunt," which is the first region of the world map after the tutorial level and opening story elements. The area had a total of seven side quests. For clarity's sake, while the game menu has categories for "errands," "jobs," "challenges," and as-yet-undiscovered mission profiles, I refer to any task that sends you off to do anything for any reason a side quest. 

I found it notable that Guerilla's narrative team created a major challenge for themselves with the way they opened the game. Aloy is literally in a race against time to save the world. So intent is she on this task that she repeatedly takes extraordinary risks in gameplay, deliberately abandons friends during cinematics, and expresses a level of impatience that is palpably out of character during cut scenes. It's a masterful reintroduction to a character who has grown and matured since the last game, and not entirely in positive ways. All of this sets an unmistakable tone for the game's storylines with high drama. The problem is that the gravity of the situation is so tremendous that it's almost unimaginable that Aloy would stray off the main quest path. 

Their solutions are, with few exceptions, superb. Relying on Aloy's selflessness and compassion, she is excused from her life-or-death mission to engage in other life-or-death circumstances. A quick rundown: 

Side Quest #1: "Deep Trouble"

The closest side quest to your entry point. It's a very straightforward intro to the world, with a meaningful backstory that builds on issues within the Daunt. An explosion in a mine has caused a flood, leaving two miners trapped. Aloy goes in and finds the miners. To free them, she must blow some charges to let the water out. Aloy sneaks by or defeats several machines to get to the charges, blows them, and frees the miners. She gets some physical rewards and a bit of backstory about the miners' situation. It informs later side stories down the trail. All in all, the gameplay is fun and the tidbits of information telling you Aloy can expect complications are juicy. 

Side Quest #2: "A Dash of Courage"

Aloy arrives at the town of Chainscrape. There are plenty of quests here. I picked this one as the second because it's the one exception to an otherwise excellent array of side quests, and for that reason I just want to get it out of the way and go back to good stuff. 

The cook in the tavern is being bullied by what passes for the local mafia. He asks Aloy to get him a few cooking ingredients and a special piece of scrap metal so he can cook her a meal. Aloy agrees and goes to a machine area, whereupon she fights the machines and retrieves the scrap. The cook prepares a tasty dish for her and she gets a free food item to boost health and abilities. 

I get it that food is a new mechanic in Forbidden West and it needed to be introduced at some point, but this whole quest just didn't fit. It's not believable that Aloy would break from her primary mission to help a cook. And the cutscene of the cook actually preparing the meal breaks from the tone and feel of the game. Just in terms of story, Aloy needed a more compelling reason to go on the quest. 

Since Aloy needs to help the locals prepare for peace talks with hostile tribes in order to gain safe passage through the forbidden west, I would have tied the cook's purpose to preparing a banquet for the meeting. As it stands, this one stood out as the most non sequitur storyline.

Side Quest #3 "The Bristlebacks"

The business at the mine is a valuable foreshadowing of internecine troubles in the town. The local mafia boss who maintains he's "just an honest businessman" is trying to squeeze the appointed mayor for land concessions. It looks like he might get them after a group of extremely dangerous machines unexpectedly infest the Daunt. Aloy agrees to kill the machines. Along the way, she discovers that the machines likely got into the Daunt through a mineshaft that was illegally blasted. It looks like the mafia boss got greedy, bored too deep into the mine, and let the machines in by accident. That can't be made certain until Aloy finds the other end of the tunnel, but the tunnel isn't accessible.

At this point, the quest goes on hold! I've never seen that before, and it's a neat trick. It really demonstrates how committed Guerilla is to the game's story. "Sorry, gratifying your desire for XP and loot must be delayed so that this plot can develop a little more." The underlying thesis, and I think it's one that games are too often afraid to assert, is that the story is a reward of its own that has value equal to or greater than loot or even player advancement. 

I don't begrudge Horizon's narrative team for that. As I continue to move forward with both the main storyline and the side quests, I find they constantly vindicate themselves by delivering on those story beats. Good things come to those who wait. 

Kena and the Value of Emotional Satisfaction Versus Physical Rewards in Games

I've been playing through Kena: Bridge of Spirits and can't get the cutscene preceding the first major boss battle out of my mind (runs from the 0:15 to the 1:15 mark).

There's a lot to unpack in those 60 seconds of silent storytelling. Kena enters the arena with hope, wonder, and a little sadness-- not typical expressions for a warrior about to battle a monster. The scene flips the script on us again when the tortured ghost of Taro (the boy you're trying to save) himself appears. He's then ensnared in evil energy and transformed into the monster. 

Stuff like this is a major reason why the game works so well. In terms of level design and combat, Kena isn't doing anything really new. The story is very straightforward with no major side quests. What makes it stand out is that it nails the fundamentals of storytelling so well. Instead, it packs huge emotional energy into the events of the main storyline. It is a creation that knew going into development that it was a meat-and-potatoes game and committed to making them the best damn meat and potatoes possible. 

Normally, the opening cinematic for a boss battle focuses on the sheer physical aspects, like the adversary's size, or power, or weaponry, or the peripheral dangers of their lair. Kena largely eschews that approach, and I think for good and deliberate reasons. By simplifying the physical elements of the battle, the player can remain more focused on the emotional stakes. They are not trying to slay a beast. They are trying to free a scared little boy trapped within his own grief and guilt. 

For protagonists like Kratos or the Master Chief, the impetus to keep playing is always a physical challenge. But the driving force behind the quest to defeat them all is pretty one-dimensional. Kratos is angry. Master Chief wants to save the universe. That's pretty much it. Their games present them as super powerful icons with a perma-grimace or a blank orange visor, and their stories rarely go beyond that. They are defined by whatever stands between them and their ultimate target. 

As seen above and below, Kena is much more expressive. She's going through a range of emotion. She's determined to do the right thing yet apprehensive that she'll accidentally hurt someone, enthralled by the magic around her yet fearful for her own safety. We are invested and involved, and there's always a sense of background tension about what will happen next. 

It's consequential then that Kena never starts out with an intent to purge the land of evil. She begins by meeting the spirits of two small children and deciding to help them find their brother. The quest is small, focused, and personal. 

This narrative setup recurs in each of Kena's missions toward her ultimate goal. Each time, Kena seeks to free tortured spirits from the evil keeping them bound to the mortal plane. Kena learns about their lives in brief flashbacks, develops a connection based on sympathy and loss, and then experiences a kind of mourning and sadness at the passing of the spirit she just helped, as demonstrated by the wrap-up cinematic following her battle: 

This scene is a textbook demonstration of the concept that "the player must always be allowed to succeed, but it doesn't mean the character has to." The team behind Kena did a great job employing that principle in subtle and multi-layered ways. Yes, she has won. But she is also losing friends she's made and that (at least for me) the player has come to like along the way. 

There's no loot drop, no new weapon or trophy acquired. And adding one would be a terrible distraction from the game's theme, which is the real reward. The payoff is completely in the catharsis of the mission's story. As a choice in game design, that's a bold gamble. But thanks to the way the team executed those cinematic moments, it works. By really thinking their story and characters through, the Kena team was able to enrich the reward of finishing a level by making each victory bittersweet. Each mission's completion takes time to conclude multiple plot threads. They're not always entirely happy, but they are satisfying. 

It's that insistence on emotional satisfaction that gives the game's narrative its real brilliance. The first mission defines what the game's story is, and it never flinches from pursuing that vision. It is a story about loss and letting go. Making that into a fun game is super difficult. Making one that is enlightening and uplifting is even more so. But Kena does it because it never compromises from its vision to keep pulling you forward with the story. No gimmicks. No unlockables. No upgrades. Just characters and their arcs. 

It's not that there's no substitute for a good story. But if your story is good enough you don't need one.